


these fragments i have shored against my ruins

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Pre-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 20:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4638903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn’t ask about Clint. She <em>couldn’t</em> ask about Clint. Natasha, Natalia, born of Russia, adopted by SHIELD, no longer an agent, no longer <em>having</em> agency, she couldn’t ask her partner to bend his beliefs just to make sure they ended up side-by-side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these fragments i have shored against my ruins

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a be_compromised prompt that was essentially the following: Civil War AU in which they have to fight against each other, because they’re on different sides, but stop halfway through because they can’t...and of course, that involves making out. In short order, this is basically my way of dealing with a lot of feelings. It's technically an AU in that it’s non-AoU compliant, but probably what _could_ have happened if AoU didn’t exist? Anyway, I don’t regret that this is in part based on those teeny tiny bits of trailer spoilers we recently got (or that it’s this long) but here we go.
> 
> Incredible thanks to **gecko** and **bobsessive** for beta and for reading this over enough to ensure that it worked. Title from T.S. Eliot.

It happened quickly, before anyone had a chance to think.

The Senate came down first, hard and fast, in the same way Natasha remembers she had been blindsided after the helicarriers went into the Potomac. After that came the news stories, the meetings behind closed doors, and the whispers between their teammates that dissolved into tension and eggshell tiptoes, silent footsteps of betrayal and unsaid words that echoed like thunder in Natasha’s mind for days and hours after.

She didn’t ask about Clint. She _couldn’t_ ask about Clint. Natasha, Natalia, born of Russia, adopted by SHIELD, no longer an agent, no longer _having_ agency, she couldn’t ask her partner to bend his beliefs just to make sure they ended up side-by-side. To do so would be a violation of everything that she had worked so hard to make herself, and she knows that if she even so much as tried to play those cards, she would be shot down faster than she could draw a knife. And so it hurts, and it burns even more, because she knows what’s going to happen before it actually happens.

(It was in Stark Tower gym, during a routine workout, when she was told that Clint had chosen his side. Afterwards, she had punched the mat so hard that she shattered two of the bones in her fingers.)

He disappears to Bangladesh or Berlin or someplace starting with the letter “B” that Natasha isn’t entirely sure of because she only manages to track him in private after meetings with Tony and other people who have no business trying to pry into matters of things they think they understand. Things that they can probably _never_ understand. Because, the thing is, it’s not that Natasha really thinks that the Accords are a good idea, or that Tony has better way of dealing with all of this than Steve does.

It’s that Natasha knows how to read between the lines. Natasha knows from experience how the public will react, and she knows exactly what she needs to do in order to work her job from the inside, to keep the people she cares about safe. To keep the _person_ she cares about safe.

(She punches the foam wall again, forgetting that her hand is just barely healed, and lets the pain radiate throughout her body as she silently screams.)

 

***

 

“The Registry wants names,” Tony tells her a week later. “Yours and Barton’s, included.”

Of course they were included, because costumed superheroes didn’t just mean people with powers or metal suits. They were Avengers: they had destroyed cities and countries and buildings and even people with their two own hands, devoid of any powers, and that made them dangerous. Natasha has _always_ known they were dangerous and has never expected anyone to look at her -- or them -- any differently.

“Five minutes,” she tells Stark because she’s in the middle of tracking Clint’s current coordinates through a series of complicated sequences and codes. He’s with Steve in Ottawa, for God knows what reason, though Natasha thinks it might be to try to convince more officials against what she’s trying so hard to fight. Which _would_ be what she expects.

He's good at that, at least, enough so that she knows she doesn’t have to be overly concerned. He’s far better than she is at sitting in front of a council of men in suits and telling them what they want to hear, never breaking, never wavering, only affirming. Natasha closes the laptop and signs two names on a piece of paper, handing it over without looking up.

 

***

 

A tip from the government about an unidentified “costumed fiend” that has escaped the registration commitment sends them overseas to Manila, Tony in his suit and Natasha with her guns, searching for leads on an old and abandoned freighter that’s docked with the intention of being a secretive storage unit and, Natasha surmises, not much else, judging by its contents and the rustiness of its chains and ropes.

“Take overhead. I’ll sweep the area,” she tells him curtly, securing her comm and her widow’s bites before swinging down into bowels of the ship, moving in and out of dark corners but finding nothing except empty boxes and a few dusty pieces of machinery.

“Ground level’s all clear,” she radios cleanly into the comm hidden in her wrist, climbing the stairs to the next level and finding the engine room. She’s working her way along the narrow corridor of a catwalk when a flash of red catches her eye and her ears immediately pick up on a familiar, barely-discernible rush of wind that’s so familiar, she knows she would recognize the sound in her sleep.

Natasha has half a second to realize that if Cap’s here, there’s likely to be someone _else_ here, too, and the arrow that misses her cheek by two inches confirms that thought process almost immediately. Natasha grits her teeth and grabs a nearby pole, swinging down from the corridor in the direction where she’s seen the arrow appear from. There’s no one visible, but she uses her senses and instinct to steer her body just slightly towards the left, a few inches away from where the shot _should_ have come from by normal standards, her feet slamming into his chest and sending him flying backwards across the floor.

“Ow, _fuck_!” Clint yells as he goes down and Natasha lands nimbly on her toes, still crouched towards the ground. She straightens up at the same time he does, raising her gun as he raises his bow in retaliation.

“Barton.”

“Romanoff.”

He won’t shoot, she knows that, just in the same way that she knows that _he_ knows that, even as her finger hovers ever so gently above the trigger. One half of Clint’s mouth jerks up and in the dim light, she can see the trail of blood from a cut near his lip.

“What are we doing, Nat?”

The use of her nickname throws her but she doesn’t react, holding her ground. “You tell me,” she responds, unmoving. “You were the one who chose to side with Rogers.”

“You’re one to talk. _You_ chose Stark.”

“I chose Stark because the Registration Act will help keep us safe!”

“Right.” Clint snorts, pulling his arm back slightly, as if he means to release his arrow. “Remind me again how that works, because you chose to agree with people who want to control us with insane laws.”

“To protect you,” Natasha says roughly as he advances, holding herself more rigidly. “To make sure that people like you _never_ end up in the hands of someone like Loki again.”

“And where does that leave me?” Clint asks dangerously. “Where does that leave our friends?”

“I told you. Safe,” she spits out, keeping her gun trained on his face. Clint barks out a laugh as he drops his bow, letting it clatter unceremoniously to the floor.

“Safe,” he repeats, backing her farther into the corner. “All of our friends, including me, are on a kill list from the government right now and you call that _safe_.” He reaches out before she can react and knocks the gun from her hand, before shoving her against the wall, kicking the weapon away with his foot. “And if people are thinking we should be locked up, where does that leave us? Where does that leave your nightmares, Tasha?”

She holds his gaze, a part of her hating what she can see in his eyes: fear and also a shadow of resentment, and she hates herself even more for knowing why both of those things exist. “Do not,” she says firmly, because he smells like aftershave and coffee and everything that is so familiar, she might as well have been with him during his morning routine. _Do not call me Tasha. Do not use my vulnerabilities here, like this, right now._ His face is inches away and she can see the sweat on his upper lip when he exhales, his breath tickling her skin, every inch of her body from bones to skin aching with a need to touch him.

“Where does that leave us?” he asks again before his mouth finds hers, and the moment it does, she finds herself wondering how she’s gone this long without even _holding_ him.

“Fuck you,” she gasps out when she manages to break away but he pushes his lips back on hers as soon as she moves, cutting her off before she can say anything further. Natasha places two hands on his shoulders, digging her fingers into his uniform and he pushes against her again in retaliation until she can feel him hardening, a response so well-oiled it makes her limbs shake.

“Is this what you want, Tash? You want us to rot away in a prison cell, fucking like this, while the world goes to shit with no one to take care of it because _we_ can’t do that, because we’re all so _safe_?” His lips move away from her mouth and find her ear and as he trails his teeth over the skin there, she moans unintentionally, scraping her fingers against the leather of his vest, her fingers fumbling for the clasp across his sternum and then for the zipper tab that always seems to be too hard to grasp easily. She finally finds the metal and tugs until it gives, silently cursing the fact that his outfit has to be _so goddamn complicated_.

“Shut up,” she orders, trying to get his vest off in the easiest way possible. Clint grabs the zipper on her own suit, shoving it down around her waist while freeing her arms and Natasha tries to remember the last time they did this kind of thing in their uniforms. She comes up empty, her brain dizzy with a combination of lust and anger and frustration, but she figures it has to be at least a few years. They now save most of their passionate interludes for places like their bedroom, or at the very least, the bathroom of a broken-down hotel.

Her suit is easier and he manages to get it off quickly, cupping a breast with one hand while kissing her neck, sucking what Natasha can feel are likely to become deep red marks into her skin as he works his way down her throat. It’s astounding to her sometimes, to think about how well her body knows him -- how each movement, however small, incites a Pavlovian response that occurs without thinking, brain and body twisting themselves into one fused item in that she knows when to kiss, when to touch, when to pull. It had been one of the things that helped save them both when she fought him while he was under Loki’s control, the ease in which she could focus on doing just enough to _not_ kill him while knowing how to anticipate his reactions. No one else, she knows (and sometimes realizes with an overwhelming fear) would have been able to do that and come away alive.

Her fingers scrabble at his clothes until Clint finally breaks away enough to undo the buckle at his crotch, getting his pants loose enough, before he turns his attention back to her lips. She wastes no time in grabbing his cock, rubbing her fingers against the skin as he bucks into her, one hand tangling in her hair, fingernails scraping against her scalp as he draws a fistful of curls in his palm. Natasha bites back a yelp of pain and instead focuses on shifting her legs so that he has more room to work with, pulling his pants lower while his hands move downwards, fingering her cunt with enough force to make her knees start to swim underneath her. Removing his fingers when she starts to falter, he grabs her ass, lifting her up enough so that she’s raised off the floor and held in place by only the strength of his thighs.

“I want to feel you,” he growls as he slides into her and she lets her head fall forward onto his shoulder, digging her teeth into his skin, her lips scraping against old wounds, the taste of blood metallic in her mouth from where she’s pulled too hard at recent scars. He starts to move, pushing up against her, hard and quick and with a rhythm that’s every bit as familiar as she’s used to. She reaches down and slips her hand in between their bodies, rubbing at the top of his balls, and causing him to moan into her mouth. Natasha can feel the sweat dripping down her back and knows that she’s going to both feel and look like shit when this is all said and done, but ignores the thought because right now, in this moment, she really doesn’t care.

“Come on, Tasha,” he grunts, his hands all but marking bruises into her back, marking _you are mine_ and _you will always be mine_ , “come for me.” It’s hard and it’s fast and she knows it’s mostly because they’re working against a ticking clock but at the same time, the moment is everything that thrills her about having sex like this with Clint, with someone who matches her in every single beat. She thrusts harder, an invitation for him to rock forward, increasing pressure before she feels him release inside of her and feels something wet running down her legs. Natasha stifles a cry, muffling her response as she throws her head back, feeling her own orgasm take over, warmth and heat and relief, fucking _relief_ spreading through her body, entwined with his pleasure. Clint stays where he is, breathing heavily, and she doesn’t bother to wonder when he’ll move. They’ve done this before and they’ll probably do it again, maybe, if they don’t hate each other enough. And anyway, Natasha knows that it doesn’t matter, because they know how to train their bodies to react after sex, however out of place it is.

“I have to go back,” she says reluctantly when he finally lets her down from her perch, depositing her on shaky legs. She reaches for her uniform, pulling it up resolutely and ignoring the stickiness she feels still clinging to her skin, a mixture of sweat and semen. Clint sighs.

“Do you have to?” He reaches for his vest, stuffing his now limp cock back inside his pants. “We could just...you know. Go.” 

Natasha tugs at her own zipper and half wonders if he’s left any hickeys, not that it matters -- she’s got enough concealer to deal with it. “I’ve been tracking you,” she admits, unable to stop herself from saying it out loud. He catches her eye, letting out a slow breath that she knows has nothing to do with the intensity of what they’ve just experienced.

“So you knew I’d be here.”

“No,” she replies honestly, shaking her head. “I really didn’t.” She pauses. “But I’m glad you were.”

“Glad because you got to fuck me, or because you missed me?”

“Both,” Natasha says, watching him dress. She can hear the formerly distant sound of Steve’s shield getting closer, but they’re both hidden far enough into the shadows that they can get away without being seen, even by their equally sharp-sensed teammates. “We’re still friends, right?”

Clint looks up, a smirk falling over his features. “That depends,” he says, and Natasha raises an eyebrow. The _whoosh_ sounds are more distinct now, and she knows Tony’s probably nearby; the more she thinks about it she’s surprised he hasn’t already nosed his way into her business and asked why she hasn’t yet checked in.

“On what?”

She sees the look in his eye and his answer before he speaks, knows what he means to say by the way his mouth twitches and by the way the line near the center of his eye crinkles. Because Natasha can still read him like the back of her hand, like a goddamn book that she’s spent too much time perusing cover-to-cover until it was worn and falling apart.

And fuck it all if after everything, she still doesn’t _love_ him.

Clint holds up his palms, an invitation that she suddenly finds overly inviting.

“On how hard you hit me.”

 

***

 

“We had a spat,” is how she explains the confrontation to Tony when he asks her what the fuck she was doing with Barton: they had chosen sides and they were bound to run into each other sooner or later. Stark, of course, didn’t have to know this particular spat included having sex and Natasha doesn’t intend to let him find out, so, simply -- “we had a spat.” That’s all she gives him, because it’s all she feels comfortable giving him.

“I hope you’re still on my side, Romanoff. We’re going to need you.”

Natasha turns at the base of the tower stairs, one hand on the rail. “I’m the Black Widow,” she reminds him with a smile that she knows speaks volumes and says more than actual words ever could. “I’ve never been on _anyone’s_ side.”

 

***

 

Clint meets her in Tbilisi, on a tip that Natasha’s sent from an encrypted radio signal, arriving two hours after she’s settled into their hotel room under the alias of “Mr. and Mrs. Grunwald.” He knocks six times on the hotel room door and she opens it to find him looking like shit in more ways than one: his eyes are ripe with dark circles and his stance is haggard, his bones clearly riddled with exhaustion and, judging from the way he’s moving, a bit of pain.

“How’s your face?” she asks, reaching up to brush his cheek, fingers settling gently against the black and blue that looks horrifically sharp against too-pale skin in whitewashed hotel lighting.

“Healing,” Clint says, wincing slightly. “You didn’t exactly pull your punches on that boat.”

“You didn’t ask,” Natasha says wisely. “Happy to help, though.” She moves aside as he walks into the room and closes the door behind him, securing the deadbolt. “Does Steve know where you are?”

“Thinks I’m doing recon in Johannesburg, meeting with some stuffy officials or something,” he says, sitting down on the bed. “Either way, he doesn’t expect to hear from me until I have news.”

“Good,” Natasha says, walking into the bathroom. Her own limbs hurt, her flight was long and the tension that she can feel spreading through her lower back feels like fire, flames licking against her skin in places that are already burned. “That means we have time.” She reaches into the tub and turns on the faucet, stripping her clothes off and getting in as the tub fills itself.

“What are we doing here, Tasha?”

She eases into the water, pushing her hair into a bun, collecting the strands of red as high as they’ll go, which she knows isn’t really that high at all. “You asked me that last week.”

“And you fucked me, and then you hit me, and so I’m asking again.”

“You _asked_ me to hit you,” she reminds him. Clint sighs as he takes a seat on the toilet, hunching over, his arms around his knees.

“I didn’t ask you to fuck me.”

“No,” Natasha agrees quietly, twisting the lever to stop the flow of water. She leans her head back against the ceramic cradle of the tub, letting the warm liquid settle into her skin. “You didn’t.”

“So I’m _asking again_ ,” and Clint rubs a hand over the lower half of his jaw, his fingers skirting against rough five-o'clock stubble, “what the hell are we doing?”

Natasha closes her eyes. The Superhero Registration Act will be put into effect in five days, their names are out there, there’s nothing they can do about it. But they both know that, and so Natasha knows that there’s no point in stating the obvious, the chasm that she realizes has spread between them, too big a gulf for either of them to address without it ending in some sort of brutal throw-down.

“We have no place in the world,” she says quietly, settling her gaze on the incredibly gaudy faucet handle, and Clint looks up from where he’s been staring at his hands.

“You sure about that?”

Natasha scoffs. “We’re hiding out in a hotel room in Tbilisi under aliases and lying to our teammates about our activities, so yeah. Pretty sure.”

Clint puts his lips together. “What you said when we were together before...about Loki. About you wanting to protect me.” He stops and when he swallows, it looks painful, like he’s trying to gulp down a mouthful of sharp blades. “Was that true?”

Natasha’s head snaps up. “Of course it was,” she responds, feeling the hurt creep into her voice but not bothering to hide it. “After all of this...how could you ever think that’s something I would lie about?”

“Kind of hard to tell what’s real these days, if you know what I mean,” and Natasha lets her eyes travel up his face as he talks, her gaze settling on the mark from where she’s hit him.

“Fuck _you_.”

“Already did.” He looks so entirely pleased with his response that Natasha suddenly can’t take it, getting up and grabbing for the large plush towel next to the bathtub.

“You want in?”

Clint stares at her, as if he needs to take a moment to realize what she’s asking, then shakes his head. Natasha grits her teeth.

“Fine. Windows, then.” She shivers in the sudden cold as she wraps herself in a cocoon of terrycloth and Clint nods, getting up and walking out of the bathroom. It’s comforting to know that no matter what the situation, their shared thought process will always be the same: sightlines, hidden cameras, anything that can be potentially used as a weapon. Standard SHIELD protocol sweep, even when SHIELD is no longer around to exist. She pulls her fingers through her hair, shaking the bun loose, and then slips her clothes back on. When she comes out, Clint’s standing at the large window overlooking the cityscape, his hands raised with two pointer fingers and thumbs forming a lopsided square.

“Best shot for a sniper would come from here,” he says, turning to face her but not moving his body, and then he does a 180, repositioning his hands without looking. “Second best shot, here, but you’d have to be _really_ fucking sharp because it’s not a straight trajectory with the wind direction this high up.” Natasha doesn’t even have to look to know he’s calculated absolutely correctly without really looking, and gives him a half-smile.

“Good to know you’ve still got it.”

“Where the hell would it go? Just because I’m not fighting with you doesn’t mean I’ve lost my skills,” he returns, yanking the shades closed, an added measure of security. She sits down on the bed, carefully crossing her legs.

“You know, there aren’t many people I’d fly halfway around the world for,” Clint continues, joining her. “Less who I’d take a chance of flying commercial for.”

“All the good flights were booked,” Natasha says, rolling her eyes. “Also, contrary to popular belief, I’m not made of money. Not like I could just hack into Stark’s account without him realizing what I was doing, so you could have more leg room and free alcohol in first class.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot that the _people’s person_ Natasha Romanoff doesn’t do things extravagantly anymore,” Clint says a little bitterly and Natasha feels herself bristle with indignation.

“Watch your mouth, Barton. I know where you live.”

He laughs, a sound that sends a chill straight down her spine and into the joints of her bones because it’s so terrifyingly caustic and vulnerable, it might as well be foreign. Natasha ignores the feeling it sends to her brain and decides to ask the question she’s become sick of asking herself instead.

“Do you ever wonder if we made the right choice?”

Clint snorts, a reaction that sounds a little more familiar. “I don’t think we made the _wrong_ choice,” he says and Natasha sighs because it’s both an answer and it’s not, because it’s Clint through and through and sometimes, she hates him for being so flippant.

“I don’t mean _this_ ,” she clarifies. “I mean fighting. Joining SHIELD. Becoming partners. All of it.”

Clint plays with his fingers a little too intensely. “You know, you asked me that question last year. In another goddamn place that was also off the grid. When you thought I was --”

“I never thought that,” Natasha says firmly, cutting him off. “No matter what I said.” She had been delirious, driving over eight hours to find him at the safe house where he was hiding undercover, partially an attempt to make sure he was as okay as he had promised her over the phone and partially to make sure that nothing else so important had been snatched from her life without her permission. Despite what she _knew_ , it had still taken her awhile (and more than a few sprains) to believe it.

“So how come you think it’s any different now?”

“I don’t.”

“Sure sounds like you do.” His tone is so confident, so unwavering, that it makes her want to punch something and so she grabs for a corner of the comforter, kneading her fingers into the soft blanket, her joints still protesting from their healed state. _Fucking twelve hundred thread count_.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Like I said,” and there’s a careful balance of resentment and wistfulness coloring his response, “I don’t think we made the wrong choice.” He pauses, looking her up and down in a way that makes her feel starkly naked, even though if there was one person in the world she’d trust to read her outright, it would be him and only ever him. “Love is for children, right?”

Natasha knows that if she were any other type of person, she probably would have answered with words. But as she leans forward to kiss him, she finds that _this_ is the only answer she feels comfortable with: drawing him in and letting her fingers trail down his collarbone, the pad of her thumb dancing at the curve of his neck, like a deadly, delicate dance, where one wrong move could end him before he even had a chance to think.

“Fuck,” he breathes into her mouth, and his reaction is so earnestly genuine it makes her want to come at that second. “Stop, Nat, stop -- _stop_.”

She pulls away at his tone, but only enough so that their lips are still hovering inches apart, her eyes locking into his own gaze.

“What?”

“I can’t -- we can’t --”

Natasha draws back farther. She can see it in his limbs and knows it’s all reflected in the same way the fingers of his right hand pull at her hair, a nervous tremor that’s _Tasha_ \-- not Natalia, not even Nat.

“We can’t _what_?”

Clint motions with one hand, his palm making a sweeping gesture around the hotel room and Natasha feels herself start to unravel.

“This isn’t child’s play. This is a goddamn war. And we’re on different sides.”

“No,” says Natasha, her tone hardening “We’re only on different sides when we have to be. And then we’re on each other’s side. The world, these people, this war, our friends...you owe them _nothing_ , Clint. And neither do I.” She lunges forward again, her mouth on top of his.

“Tasha,” he says, but this time his voice is softer and less intense, and something that screams _want_ , _need_ instead of _hurt_ , _don’t_. “Tasha.” She softens the pressure, letting her teeth brush across his lips before letting herself melt into him, and he runs his hands up and down her back, underneath her thin shirt.

They fall back together onto the bed, sinking into the pillows and too soft blankets, Clint’s body on top of her like a weight that’s holding her under the surface. She breaks away to draw in breath and then flips him onto his side.

“I chose Stark because of what I told you -- because I wanted to keep you safe,” she says, licking her lips where they’re becoming dry. “I know him. I’ve worked under him before. And like it or not, he’s got allies and means that Rogers won’t ever be able to match. I can work them from the inside, relay information to keep you aware, to keep you and everyone else we care about out of harm’s way. We _need_ to be on different sides, Clint, if we want to survive this.”

He breathes out, once, twice, and then inhales slowly. “You can’t protect me,” he says when he finally speaks, his voice hoarse. “You can’t sacrifice everything for one person when it comes to the rest of the world. God, Nat. You know that.”

“Yes,” she agrees, feeling her face break into a grim smile. “I do. But you also know that I’ve never been someone who follows the rules.”

“True enough.” He traces the skin around her mouth and at his touch, she feels herself start to tremble. There’s blood pumping through her skin, hot and warm, vibrating proof of the life that threads through her veins magnified in this huge bed with him by her side, sharing space the way they once did before they were broken apart by a world that always seemed like it wanted to complicate things. But she’s _alive_ , and more alive than she has been in weeks, and she’s not dumb enough to pretend that she doesn’t know why. Clint puts his hand over hers.

The first time, it had been like this, in a hotel room just like this: a place too nice for comfort and a little too over the top. It had been just like this, only her skin was singed with ash and the smell of smoke, and her hair matched the color of the burns on her face. They had made love anyway, largely because with the brush of death had also come an onslaught of feelings, and she remembers distinctly the roller coaster of her emotions, thrill turning to fear turning to comfort. The second time wasn’t much better: a field in Yorkshire, running on too little sleep, his hand sliding almost unconsciously between her thighs with the same precision of the knife that had almost slid into her arm. But each time and all the times after, there had been something different or unique about the way they connected with each other that made them both feel like they had found something that no one else would ever understand.

“Nat.” And then again, louder, more urgently. “ _Nat_.”

Natasha blinks, finding his face, taking note of the creases between his eyes, the flare of his lips, the two distinct lines at the corner of his mouth. She does this sometimes, she knows: drifts off, falls into her head, becomes too introspective for her own good. It’s a terrible habit, and he knows it.

“Nat.” It’s like he’s repeating her name because he wants to remind her of who she is, of who _they_ are, and it makes her want to scream. _I know my own damn name, Barton_. He’s trailing one hand over her hair, fingers tangling in damp curls, every stroke of his hand overly gentle and at the same time, a dagger across her scalp. “Why Tbilisi?”

 _Why Tbilisi? Why not Croatia, Budapest, or hell, even San Francisco?_ She breathes in the smell of laundered sheets, the suddenly thick air clogging the room.

“I needed to be far enough away to think,” she admits. “Somewhere that didn’t remind me of anything we’ve been through. We haven’t been in this part of the country for over five years...it was a good choice.”

“Okay. And why _me_?”

“Because,” and she feels her voice cracking under the pressure, like a fissure that’s too fragile, “this is a war and I needed to regroup.”

_This is a war and I needed to know where I stand._

Clint sighs. “We could still go,” he says, keeping himself close and Natasha shakes her head, because _just going_ would be too easy, and too ideal. They’ve both run away before and it hasn’t ever made anything easier.

“It’s exhausting,” she says. “To run. But my whole life has been about following orders when I didn’t have to. I finally get to make one choice that’s based on my own motivations...and I risk tearing us apart.”

“Since when do you care so much about what other people think?” Clint asks curiously, propping himself up on an elbow. “Since when do you care so much about what _I_ think?”

“Since the world went to hell in a hand basket, that’s when. Sometimes I’m not sure of anything anymore.” She stops herself before continuing, taking a long breath. “Sometimes the only thing I’m sure of is you.”

This time it’s Clint’s mouth that’s on hers before she can stop it and she wants to protest and she wants to be angry because _she_ should initiate and _she_ should be the one wanting this, even if he wants the same thing. But then he’s locked in, his lips sucking at her lower one repeatedly enough that when he pulls away, everything is numb. Natasha feels something inside her break, equal parts harsh and clean, like the way she used to split slices of bread with him in closed quarters before she was allowed real food. Clint leans in again, his hands soft where they palm at her body.

She lets him remove her shirt and then kisses him slowly; she wants to save this and bottle it forever: this moment of not wondering, not worrying, but just _being_. His hand slips into her underpants, his fingers teasing where she knows she’s already wet.

And Natasha realizes that she wants to _feel_.

“Don’t go fast,” she breathes as the fingers of his other hand twist her nipple and Clint makes a noise in the back of his throat.

“You’re a goddamn annoyance sometimes, you know that?”

“Good.”

She doesn’t know what he’ll do as foreplay -- she has an idea when he starts kissing down her stomach, which is confirmed when he bends his head at the juncture of her thighs where his hand had previously been working -- but she wants to stave off coming before she has a chance to appreciate what they’re doing. The freighter had been a spontaneous decision on both their parts, a desire that had tumbled out of their bodies spurred by a need accentuated by too much time apart, but this was different. This time, there was no one watching their backs; there was no mission to worry about and there was no one to lurk around the corner, insinuating they’d be caught. This time, there was just _them_ , just Clint in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere, making her arch into the sheets, staining them with her sweat. And even though she doesn’t say any words out loud, she thinks he might understand the _whys_ and _hows_ when he draws his mouth away, running his tongue over his lips with a look that borders between delirious and satisfied.

“I don’t want anyone to take this away,” he says and Natasha nods.

“I know,” she whispers as he slides into her, a slow, inevitable rocking of something intense, something familiar, and something that feels like home.

 

***

 

They wake in the morning pressed into each other, her head on his right arm which she’s pulled close against her chest, his other arm slung around her middle in a protective and familiar hold that makes her feel warm and satisfied in a way that she thinks not even sex could offer.

She wants to stay here forever, and the worst part is, she knows that she can’t. Natasha untangles herself gently, leaving him with a pillow to compensate for the absence of her body and gets dressed before starting the coffee machine.

“Time’s our flight?” Clint asks with an audible yawn when he wakes up, rolling over onto his back and getting out of bed, carefully navigating through the minefield comprised of scattered plates and napkins from last night’s room service, metal tins left out on the floor and wine glasses stained with red on the bedside table.

“Noon,” she says, checking her watch. Six in the morning is not exactly normal considering they hadn’t gotten to bed until well past two, but then again, their sleeping habits had never been anything close to regular, especially when they were in foreign countries.

“So just enough time for coffee,” he decides as she hands him his cup.

“Personally, I’m kind of wondering if it’s just enough time to drink.”

“Pretty sure you can do _that_ on the plane,” Clint says, putting his mug down and leaning against the counter of the island that divides the kitchen area in the suite. Natasha glances up at his crooked stature, the bruises and cuts that litter the scape of his chest, spreading down his arms in a map of disjointed missions gone wrong, and she knows instinctively that _this_ is real: her, them, Clint, alone and as together as they’re going to be for a long time, in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere, every single guard falling to their feet.

“Hey, Nat.”

She shakes herself out of her thoughts and he’s staring at her -- black eye, corners of his lips turned up, coffee dripping down the side of the mug and pooling onto the tile -- and she finds herself thinking that the maid is absolutely going to _hate_ them.

“Yeah?”

“We’re still friends, right?”

Natasha smiles.

 

***

 

“So should I ask where you’re going to track me to next?” Clint asks as they secure their boarding passes, heading out of the security line and into the hell-mouth of the overly busy airport terminal. “Or should I wait and be surprised?”

“Oh, I’ll think of somewhere.” Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Stark’s got a map of places that he wants to recon.”

“Cap, too.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “And I’m sure Ellis is going to want statements at some point, so I’ll probably end up making a trek to D.C. to sit in more boring meetings.”

“Hmmm.” Natasha eyes him as they stop in front of one of the gates, hooking her fingers through the belt loops on his jeans. “Washington? We haven’t fucked in Washington yet.”

“I’ll keep it on the list, then,” Clint says, checking his watch, nodding behind her. “You’re boarding.”

“I know.” Natasha rocks up on the balls of her feet, two hands wrapping around his neck to pull him down. He tastes like the orange he’s eaten for breakfast and something else Natasha can’t quite place, a flavor that’s too faint for her to pick up. She catalogues it away for future reference as she breaks the kiss. “How long until you find me?”

“Realistically?” He shrugs. “Give me two days or so. My spy stuff is kind of rusty at the moment.”

“Fair enough.” Natasha tips her face up further and grins. “But if I don’t hear from you by the middle of the week, I’m going to send us to Vienna.”

Clint groans, a sound of frustration mixed with audible fear. “You wouldn’t.”

“Of course I would,” Natasha says lightly, her fingers dancing along his sternum, brushing the leather of his jacket. “Do you think the manager at the Four Seasons remembers the broken chandelier?”

“Twenty bucks and a latte from the restaurant in the lobby says absolutely.” He surveys her closely, and she takes notice of the way his face changes.

“Tash.”

“Clint --”

“Nat, you asked me if I made the right choice,” he interrupts and Natasha takes a breath, holds it, waits until she feels like her lungs are going to burst. “I still can’t answer that. But I can say that the only _right_ choice I ever made was saving you all those years ago.” He traces a thumb down her cheek, letting it rest on her jawline, the place where she knows there’s just the faintest, smallest hint of a scar, invisible to anyone who wasn’t there to see the fight happen.

“You make your own decisions. We all do. But this is why I gave you another chance. And if you ever try to compromise yourself just because you think I’ll leave you or abandon you for making a different call, you’re an idiot.”

Natasha feels the corners of her mouth lift, leaning against his chest as he rubs one hand over her back. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” she says into his clothes and the vibration of his response, a deep thrum mingled with the steady beat of his heart, makes her sigh.

“You gonna be okay?”

It’s tempting to run away, to agree with him that all they really need to do in order to get through this is hide out in some foreign town in a hotel room with fake names, bouncing around the country with little regard to what’s happening. It’s tempting even still to throw everything away and go back _with_ him, disregard her flight and paperwork and responsibilities and ignore all her phone calls. She kisses him again, coming away and staring at the parts of his hair made brighter by the fluorescent lights, the crooked lines along his forehead that bleed into the invisible scars and cuts that have long since healed and vanished at some point during their relationship.

_“Once again, this is the final call for flight 2556 to Munich, with connections to Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport and New York City; all passengers must board at this time, thank you.”_

“I will be,” she decides as his arms wrap tighter around her body, a promise of commitment, of understanding, of a feeling that will always and forever be theirs, no matter who they report to or who they kill or who knows their secrets.

“Come back,” he murmurs into her ear, a barely-there sentence, and as Natasha leans over to pick up her bag, she finds herself smiling.

_Yes. Come back._

_Come back._

_I can do that._


End file.
